6GEO4 Unit 6 Consuming the Rural Landscape-Leisure and Tourism

1. 6GEO4 Unit 6 Consuming the Rural Landscape-Leisure and Tourism

2. What is this option about? • This option focuses on the increasing demands placed on rural areas by the growth of leisure and tourism. You will study the patterns and trends experienced globally of such demands on a range of rural locations: from the edge of urban areas to deep wilderness • You will include an analysis of these consumption pressures on often fragile human and physical landscapes, and how effectively management may address these.

3. CONTENTS • Growth of leisure & tourism landscapes • Significance and fragility • Impacts • Management Issues Click on the information icon to jump to that section. Click on the home button to return to this contents page

4. What is leisure, tourism & recreation? Non -Local recreation Local recreation Business & personal travel LEISURE-non working time TOURISM Business and recreational travel

5. The option summarised

6. Enquiry Q 1 Growth of leisure + tourism landscapes • The rise of leisure tourism and pleasure periphery • Range of rural landscapes affected • Attitudes of players involved • Conflicts This includes the concepts and processes of • Rebranding • Commodification and valorization of post productive landscapes • Honeypot development • Wilderness continuum • Rewilding • Rights of indigenous people • Auditing rural landscapes • Designating protected areas such as country and National Parks, nature reserves

7. Urban fringe: traditional location for local recreation and leisure. May be of interest to wider tourism if eg large theme park Accessible countryside: visits originate mainly from regional area, transport technology enables day visits eg to a National Park : More remote rural areas within a country or of interest to tourists from abroad – a widening pleasure periphery ‘Pristine’ wilderness? May have low numbers of indigenous people. Often tourism dominated because of remoteness Is any rural landscape really devoid of human influence? Urbanised ‘wilderness’ Pristine wilderness Rural landscapes continuum

8. Key concept: the widening and deepening pleasure periphery • 1800 source – close to home / local W Europe and E USA • 1900 Periphery (1) based in NW Europe • 1930 Periphery (2) extends to W Mediterranean • 1950 Periphery (3) includes all of the Mediterranean • 1970 Periphery (4) travel far away and long haul becomes more readily available • 1990 Periphery (5) tourists are able access the world’s remotest places eg Antarctica • 21st C consolidation? More extreme activities in existing areas . Backlash to ecotourism. Rise of demand from SE Asia especially China

9. Key Players

10. Enquiry Q 2 • Physical significance and ecological value • Fragility of some rural areas • Degree of threat, using models • Use of qualitative and quantitative environmental quality measures

11. Fragility, thresholds , capacities and resilience Key models and concepts to this option are: Resilience , basically the ability of an ecosystem and landscape, whether physical or human, to withstand pressure and stay intact Carrying capacity, the ability or capacity of an area to deal with the numbers and demands of visitors who use an area. It is based on the idea that any geographical system has certain limits or thresholds. When exceeded, changes may affect not only the physical components of an environment ( ecosystems, soil and water...) but human environments, especially culture and quality of life.

12. Sustainable ‘use-renewal ‘ and resiliency models • Sometimes demands from leisure and tourism exceed the carrying capacity of the system • Sustainable management = any location is left in as good a state as it was before visitors, even enhanced. • In a sustainable system, successive use will not reoccur until recovery has taken place- • Recovery rates vary depending on the ecosystem /landscape involved- more fragile less resilient ones eg tundra and high altitude ones will be slower than temperate chalk grasslands or sand dunes. • Model adapted from Trudgill, Flintoff and Cohen 1998 use Recovery State or strength of the system Threshold of normal functioning Threshold beyond which there is no recovery= collapse Time Where rates of use exceed recovery rates, degradation occurs and a threshold is reached beyond which recovery is not possible

13. Number of people/use= will reduce either because site becomes degraded or through restrictive management New higher Saturation or carrying capacity zone raised by targeting site and increasing its resilience/decreasing its use Capacity Capacity not reached Time Changing Carrying capacities by positive management Stress on area, management needed Initial threshold for carrying capacity

14. Categories of recreational capacity • Environmental: influenced by : • resistance,- the ability of an ecosystem or community to absorb use without being disturbed • resilience- the speed of recovery, if ever of a system. • Physical or design: If demand exceeds supply, then the physical capacity is exceeded. Includes the • ‘at-one-time’ principle • ‘throughput capacity’. • Economic: if coping with visitor problems is more costly than their revenue. • Perceptual: too many people concentrated in one spot at one time may lead to a feeling of over crowding . Some activities are more ‘crowd tolerant’ or ‘crowd sensitive’.

15. Measures of significance to audit landscapes Quantitative Qualitative Subjective, non-numerical data includes the perceptions of different groups about an area. Inevitably subjective and biased and hence often considered unreliable. Examples: Bipolar and environmental quality indices may be used, together with field sketches and photographs However: people choose to visit an area more for their perceptions than empirical knowledge. Increasing use of non-quantitative measures in management • Numerical data is useful for statistical analysis and for GIS systems • Examples: • Species frequency and diversity • Land values • Landscape diversity • Resource value eg forestry products

16. Enquiry Q 3 • Impacts: positive and negative • Changes in impact over time • Threats and opportunities in areas of differing economic development

17. Changing impacts over time Numbers of visitors Rejuvenation, possibly through rebranding of area stagnation- 4.Antagonism — covert and overt aggression to visitors consolidation 3.Irritation — concern and annoyance over price rises, crime, rudeness, and cultural rules being broken Decline of area 2.Apathy — increasing indifference with larger numbers Development involvement 1. Euphoria — delight in contact Exploitation Time Model of changes in the impacts on rural landscapes by leisure & tourism incorporating Butler’s Life cycle and Doxey’s irritation models

18. Commodification of the rural landscape • Adding value to the countryside is a key element of new uses of many areas in areas where food production is no longer a priority or where a tourism hot spot develops • Rebranding may happen spontaneously and gradually as locals adapt to change and offer new attractions to urban populations • Rebranding may also be part of specific government policies to reimage and rejuvenate areas suffering population decline and lower qualities of life • The media plays a large part in any valorisation

19. Visitor influences in rural areas NEGATIVE IMPACTS/THREATS Economic • Development & marketing cost • Demands on local public services, especially water and waste • Seasonal and part time employment • low wages • Leakages of profits • External changes an affect visitor numbers rapidly and make economy unstable– eg Foot & Mouth outbreak of 2001, terrorism • Increased cost of living to locals eg by second homes • Land use conflicts- damage & trespass costs Social • New, often conflicting cultures/ideas • Crime real or perceived • Over crowding of roads, services, congestion • Infringement of privacy • Un equitable share in benefits Environment • Increased visitor numbers may degrade environment- trampling erosion of footpaths, habitat loss • Increased pollution: air, noise, litter • Intrusive new developments- loss of greenfield • Wildlife and domestic stock disturbed POSITIVE IMPACTS/OPPORTUNITIES Economic • Income generator • Employment • Multiplier effect • Diversifies economy • Opportunity for investment, innovation • Supports existing businesses • Develops local crafts/trades Social • Fosters pride of place • Community infrastructure • Cultural exchange • Community spirit • Safeguards customs Environment • Key factor in revitalizing natural, cultural, historical resources • Village renewal & cleaner countryside • Fosters conservation/ preservation resources • Visitors may act as ‘ambassadors’ about the value of a place

20. Enquiry Q 4 Management • Should rural landscapes be managed? • Attitudes and conflicts of different managers • Effectiveness of management strategies • Who is the management for: • locals? • visitors? • Landowners? • The flora and fauna and landscapes of the natural environment? • What rights should locals have? • To what extent should degraded or damaged landscapes be restored to original state? • If restoration is involved is there legislation to restore indigenous species? Why? • Is micro-management the best strategy or a wider perspective? • Is management short or long term? • Is management reactive or pro-active? • Are there any conflicts between different managers of any site?

21. Carrying capacity management

22. Classifying Management actions

23. Setting limits of use • In the 1960s and 1970s managers tried to determine an optimum number for sites from Yosemite to Stonehenge • However, it is almost impossible to set a value • Indeed, creating a specific carrying capacity figure may give false impression of security once established. • Latest research focuses on the concept that all activities cause impacts and these should be limited rather than the pure numbers of people. • This is called the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) . It is used to set standards and monitoring indicators based on management and stakeholder concerns. • When these standards are not met then managers start mitigation to return to an acceptable impact. • By the 1980s in the USA a form of LAC was used by about a quarter of all national parks by the 1980s calledThe Visitor Experience and Resource Protection Process (VERP). This is largely based on physical capacity. • The concept is now used globally by many managers. Yosemite by D. Milton

24. The concept of ‘loved to death’! Tourism and recreation is a powerful tool for both local and national economic development especially for rural areas with limited opportunities . This is not just in more developed economies in a post productive phase and with a declining workforce in agriculture, but also in developing economies : Peru, Vietnam. One of the biggest markets in the future is China, with a vast internal market and now post Olympics an even bigger growth hot spot for foreign travellers. • This is the fundamental paradox of modern tourism: sites often have to be protected and promoted at the same time: hence the term ‘loved to death’! • The carrying capacity is often exceeded, hence’ death’ to aspects of an area: from ecosystem species to indigenous peoples.(top image is of locals near Machu Picchu selling artefacts) • National parks from Yellowstone, the Lake District to Machu Picchu in Peru are classic examples.

25. Assessing management strategies • Criteria need to be set up to assess the effectiveness of the range of management strategies possible: • The sustainability quadrant or 3 pillars of sustainability models may help as a framework. Total protection- may be preservation No public access. May have scientific research Wildlife parks & reserves May include ecotourism Extractive reserves Economic development integrated into conservation Exploitationmay have token protection